#and who will pay the price; the lost or the damned 💥 bsd verse

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

He chucks a rock at a warehouse, seconds later activating his ability so the rock proceeds to explode next to the wall. It makes a sizeable dent and by all accounts he wants to do worse, but he's bound to get into more trouble by lingering.

So he tries to disappear just as fast as he appeared there, at least he feels a bit calmer internally.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

His grin is something of a mix between mischievous, and childish sincere enjoyment.

"Guess I'll do my best to make sure the fires spread."

˗ˏˋ *ㅤ★ㅤ‿︵ㅤ˗ˏˋㅤ❛ㅤPERFECT ! We can do it together then ! Maybe we can even get 30% ! Or even 40% !ㅤ❜

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

@theircurse :

' Set the thing on fire. '

He's been told to do this before, and since he has no right to really disobey anyone in Port Mafia, he always follows through. But he's only ever been truly okay with this 'command' so to speak, from Amber, and Akutagawa.

Seems Yumeno would be added to that tiny list, something about this made him feel that perhaps they would enjoy seeing something go up in flames almost as much as he would; if not the exact same.

Something about this is also a return to form for him, there's a gleam in his mismatching eyes as he runs his hand across the edges of an old bedframe that had been left unattended. Unseen handprints left all around the metal base, before he wanders back over to them. They're at a safe distance as far as he can tell, no true danger should come to them beyond what was expected.

He grins, before his eyes begin to glow in red.

"As you wish," he obliges with a simple swipe across his face.

His handprints shine in yellow, before in seconds they explode. Abruptly a bonfire had been created from nothing, burning brightly before them while the metal creaked and sparked. He's well aware that his ability isn't really any better than Kajii's, but all the same, part of him hopes that they're impressed.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

He’s trying to sew up the holes through his jacket after being stabbed. But has no idea how and mostly just keeps hurting his hands.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

He's radiating large amounts of silent hostility in a certain former mafia executive's direction.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

@theircurse​

He’s forgotten by now if he had an actual task in mind before doing this, or if he just wandered into a secondhand store absentmindedly because he had nothing better to do today. But either way he ended up walking through the small building with various items sitting around, most of them not seeming all that useful to him anyway. Though people he passed apparently must’ve liked them just fine because they kept stopping and ‘ooh’ing over things.

He had his own moment like this however, when he stopped over by a shelf in a far corner with stuffed animals piled onto it. Most sitting out and overflowing off the shelf, but for one of them there was a clear plastic container with three plush cats in it. He doesn’t know why he gets this impulse, but his gaze doesn’t linger on it for long before he’s hit with the idea of freeing them.

The intention behind this setup was likely for someone to take the cats out and leave the container. But Maki decides to take the container with him when he goes to pay for them, the idea of taking them out in the store doesn’t even occur to him. When they’re officially paid for he doesn’t wait up for the cashier either, he takes the box and rushes out despite verbal protest. He’s down the street before he stops at a bench and actually takes the three out, tossing the plastic box into a nearby trash can.

But now that he was holding all three, the impulse is gone and he’s not entirely sure what to do with them. They’re... soft? In a way he finds himself definitely not minding holding them, but it is a bit crowded holding three at once. ... Kids usually like plush toys right? Maybe Yumeno would like one or two of them?

Whatever his initial goal had been, he had no hope of remembering it now. He’s off to find Yumeno.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

@theircurse​ : ' That man is stupid and his face is ugly '. Which man is Yumeno talking about ? Honestly, they're referring to Fitzgerald more but both are ugly.

Maki knows that there’s no way that Yumeno is referring to the person who attacked him, but he had very briefly gotten a photo of the man while he’d been attempting to call Akutagawa for help in the moment. It was blurry and had to be retrieved from the data barely recovered from his destroyed old phone, but he shows a photo of the blonde man regardless.

“I know you must be talking about Fitzgerald, but you’re right either way. They can both be stupid and ugly.”

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

“The other day I ended up having to retrieve something from the archive, and a photo of...Fitzgerald I believe? Fell out? And getting a good look at him, I still say he reminds me a lot of the man who tried to kill me.”

“But Akutagawa saw that I picked up the photo, and I pointed out to him that though their abilities are very different, they do look a bit similar. And all he said was ‘Oh? Don’t worry, we dealt with that one already.’“

“I asked him which one he meant, but he went right back to what he was doing. I still don’t know.”

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

Oh! He wasn't expecting to receive candy in return, but he accepts the candy bar without question.

He decides he'll actually try it before he goes out and attempts this... 'trick-or-treating'. But before he goes he tries to set the hat to his witch costume over Yumeno's hood with a smile.

"You can hang onto it for a second. Hopefully I'll also be getting candy soon though."

╰ ☆ ✧ — @remotespontaneouscombustion cursed: He offers a small bag of gummis! "Happy Halloween."

˗ˏˋ *ㅤ★ㅤ‿︵ㅤ˗ˏˋㅤ𝑼𝒏𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒅 ! They take the gummis but give him one of their CANDY BARS as a treat !

⊱ ★ ⊰ㅤ˗ˏˋㅤ❛ㅤHappy Halloween !ㅤ❜

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

@moonhund​ - x

He leaps again at the necklace, and his fingers barely manage to brush past the feathery decoration at the bottom of the charm. Maybe with more delicate parts to it, if he kept this up he might’ve been able to get it back without help eventually. However this necklace is made from a leather string, that has become impressively tangled in the branches. He’s not going to get it down on his own, not by normal means anyway.

“A few minutes,” he answers before he tries yet again with a futile attempt. He actively ignores the question of how he got into this situation in the first place, both because he is very focused... and he’d rather not say that the necklace went flying off of him. The fire department is still nearby putting out the fire from a recent abrupt explosion, completely unrelated, of course. 

In light of another failure on his part, he huffs before staring up at it again. He’s not expecting the stranger to help him, but he’s also not leaving or going to stop trying until he gets it back.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

Maki was not personally exposed to the cells of Port Mafia, though he knew of them and knew he could end up there if he wasn’t careful. Somehow though, Amber managed to talk him out of having to be there, because she voiced that she would be dealing with him full-time. So he was surprisingly spared of the layers of suffering taking place in the prison cells, instead moreso confined to staying by Amber’s side all day every day. Never stepping out of line for her, who knows what trouble that would bring her-- and by extension him, if he did. But he was always more worried for her than himself, she made it feel like she was risking so much just for him just because she cared so much about him.

Not at all because he was a destructive obsessed little bodyguard for her. Where in the world would you get a silly idea like that?

The only times in which he managed to have moments of freedom from Amber were on jobs he was deliberately assigned to, or when he managed to talk to Akutagawa briefly. Those higher up the chain would push the point onto Amber more for her to figure out what Maki’s ability was and how it worked, so they could utilize him and free him from her side. She didn’t want this but he was assigned to Motojirō, who Maki simply finds annoying-- and Amber fed into that emotion even more. No paying attention to the others the only person that mattered was her. 

Akutagawa still threw wrenches into that plan for the fact that Maki liked him, and even without Dazai’s looming presence to prove to be an issue with Amber voicing her opinion on this matter; she felt she couldn’t say anything about it. The executive’s presence was still felt even long after he was gone by so many, so all she could really do was side-eye at Akutagawa from time to time. The kind of gaze that on a surface level would appear kind, but in truth her smiles never reach her eyes.

With his ability now fully spelled out in her absence, he has no idea what is supposed to be next for him. He’s attempting to go through his life as though all is normal like she’s still around, but he also gets the feeling he’s only getting away with this because none of those higher up are paying him much mind yet. 

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

have you ever taken part in an uprising? // do you miss anyone? // how are you doing? // favorite song?

Interview the muse

have you ever taken part in an uprising?

Verse: Canon

"I was supposed to." He answers with a low grumble. "I think it's likely too late now, it might've already happened, or… I don't know."

do you miss anyone?

Verse: Pokemon

If this question had been asked awhile before, he would've had an answer without any hesitation. Even now he opens his mouth to speak and he wants to say her name, as though no one else could ever compare. But then again, he was trying to move on from the life that she'd brought him into. He was steadily learning that the sort of life she'd brought him into was… not at all what it should have been.

"…I think I'd rather be bothering Ice right now. Does that count?" He finally answers. Obviously conflicted and reluctant, but it wasn't a lie regardless.

how are you doing?

Verse: Bungou Stray Dogs

This is a funny question, he thinks the interviewer must think he used to live in one of the buildings now burned to a crisp. He can't blame them, he's looking like a lost child wandering through Yokohama… however, he's also not in the mood for this in the least.

"I'm fine." He answers curtly. "I don't live here, I just wanted to see what was going on." See the damage he did.

favorite song?

Verse: and now back to Pokemon

Blaire had gotten sick in the middle of the contest, and in Maki's mind the show couldn't have gone on without her for certain. It did suck to have to cancel what he'd worked so hard on though, and he sits alone at the beach while humming the tune to his song of choice.

"♫ Wishing on a star for saving Under the sky, a boy whose heart is aching Beneath the night I'll dance the pain away Keep singing to hide The fear of saying goodbye Until you buy the lie. ♫"

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

💬 AND ALSO bsd verse w. akutagawa

Send 💬 and Maki will say what he really thinks about your muse.

"Familiar." He answers right off, and to most he would've probably left it at just that word.

"I didn't quite know how to describe it properly at first, but when I saw how he acted with Dazai, it just felt familiar. He looked so determined and set on following whatever Dazai said, as though trying to prove something to him. When I saw it I didn't know why this felt the way it did, but… I have a better understanding now. It felt like he was trying to prove he had a reason to exist to Dazai, and… that's how I always felt with Amber. Not in the same way that Dazai treated him, but the feeling was still the same."

"And I don't fully know his perspective, but for me, he's the only person I know that's really understood that feeling. I think it plays into why neither of us were surprised with the other when..." He hesitates, and sighs softly. "When we both lost our respective people, and we both went berserk in our own ways about it."

"When I heard about what Akutagawa did, I wasn't shocked but I also didn't really have much room to have much of a perspective beyond... feeling if things had been reversed, I probably would've done the same thing. And... then I did get to have that moment myself more recently, and he had ample time and chance to stop me, but he didn't."

"I'm grateful for that, and grateful for a lot of other things too. I don't think I would still be alive if he hadn't answered when I called for help, I hated that I had to do it. I was supposed to be there to prove to her that I was the superior ability user compared to-- ugh, it doesn't matter. When someone attacked me, when I failed what I set out to do, I felt like he was the only person I could call. Maybe because I didn't feel ashamed asking for his help in particular, I would've done the same if he'd needed it but, his ability far exceeds mine in capability."

"I don't... know if 'friends' is the best way to describe my connection to him, it feels like it's more complex than just that. I really don't have a word for it, beyond... I suppose that saying, being two sides of the same coin, perhaps. Different but the same. I really respect him, I'd help without question if he ever needed it, our lives aren't normal enough to be 'normal' friends. But he is important to me, I wish I could describe it better."

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

When the flames spark on nothing, it’s the only time his eyes ever match in color. Glowing in red while gold handprints shined and exploded over a quick swipe. He always found the flames to be a comfort of a sort, it felt something like a relief from frustrations he couldn’t voice easily. But on this day? No, today he is angry. Furious. Maybe a bit mournful if he let it take over his mind. But for while the embers burned and smoke cloaked the night sky, he was enraged.

Under the roar of the flames of the buildings around him, he screams as loudly as he can until his throat can’t take it. He doesn’t remember a time when his explosives have done as much damage as this, he briefly remembers someone warning her before that he would be a destructive problem if left unchecked.

He throws another rock into a window, another swipe, and it shakes the nearby wall to the point of collapse. They were right, and he was happy to prove it.

All that time he had spent trying to prove to her that he was worthy of her, she’d asked so much of him and he did everything he could. But then she was gone, without a word she was gone. The executives questioned all that they could, prodding him the absolute most until he snapped. He joined Port Mafia at all because of her influence, everything he was, everything he’d strived to be, it all had centered around her.

Now he feels lesser than the debris left in the destruction of his wake. What was the point of all of it? What was the point of him? He is simply a being with no place in the world, and she’d given him that purpose that he lacked when he had nothing beyond his name. 

His chest stings from recovery, and the weight of his emotions. He grips at his still torn jacket while his throat protests any further sounds. But the mourning finally had its clutches on him, and he sobs like a lost child. Despite the strength he tried to put on himself to live up to, every once in awhile it crashes down. Cracking under the reminder that he is still just a child, and one without anything he’d lived for except for her.

He stares up to the sky with eyes full of tears, the clouds of smoke glowing orange and yellow while city buildings burned. He steadily gets to his feet, to escape before the fire department sees what he’s done. He knows come morning, Yokohama was not going to forget this, and he was likely going to be in even more trouble than he already was for chasing down someone over his own personal hatred.

But he ceased to care, he wasn’t exactly their problem anymore with Amber gone now was he? She’d been his ‘keeper’, and now he was loose in the city. If anyone tried to stop him now, guess they would be the one with the problem child on their hands. How unfortunate for them.

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

@bemuseing : okay 🐈 from akutagawa also (bsd verse ofc)

Send 🐈 to pick up my muse by the scruff of their neck like the menace they are!

He only comes to once he's already left the ground, his hood in the grasp of Rashoumon as he's held at eye level to Akutagawa.

The scent of flames, ash, and smoke is in the air, and truth be told Maki can't recall how he got here right off. He does get the sense that he is somewhere that he isn't supposed to be at, outside a warehouse. There's... people laying around, people who likely experienced Maki's ability for themselves.

Blurry memories are starting to come through the longer he thinks on it, but the most that could be gathered visibly is that he seems confused, and he is.

But the confusion dissipates with realization as he recognizes an emblem laying around the wreckage. The Order of the Clock Tower.

That's where he'd heard she might've escaped back to. If she was alive. She was alive. She. Was. Alive.

"...They tried to tell me she was dead."

He remembers asking for her by both of her names, and he's convinced they had to be lying. It goes black for him after that, flames and fury yet again.

Akutagawa doesn't look harmed in the least anyway, he suspects that he just got here maybe. But he knows how his ability doesn't agree well the other physically.

"...Are you okay?"

[remotespontaneouscombustion]

Maki didn’t dare let himself think about the possibility that he could be too far away, running on fumes trying to keep his attacker from getting any closer and using any more of his icy knives. Even when he was younger he was never one for tears and yet now he knows there are pinpricks of them-- apparently this was what fearing for your life was really like. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to use his own ability again, but from the sounds of things he wouldn’t have to. He was more than used to the sounds of Akutagawa’s ability in action, even if he was only able to vaguely see what was going on. 

All he’s really able to see from the blonde man is that he himself is hurt, and shocked. He must’ve thought this was going to be easy, and frankly with Maki alone and completely off course it should have been. The fact he doesn’t look nearly as hurt as he should is not a fact lost on Maki either though, even now it’s... odd. It felt like it was a personal vendetta from the way he just ran out on his own, and in a situation that was completely unprompted by nothing more than Maki’s own personal jealousy. How long had he been following him? He would’ve realized it sooner if he hadn’t been so set on killing someone else in particular.

Funny though, how Port Mafia’s black-fanged hellhound struck fear into into so many people’s hearts, yet from day one not with Maki. Too much in common, maybe. Still, what terrified so many was surprisingly more of a comfort to the 14-year-old at a time like this. But with the major danger having finally passed him, he slipped into unconsciousness, only to find himself awakening again in a hospital bed; with not a clue of how much time had passed while he was out.

He almost tried to reflexively sit up before he remembered very clearly, right, chest wound. It flares up the instant he tries but he still looks around right off to see if anyone is here with him. Akutagawa? Amber? 

Nobody was there at the moment, but it didn’t take long for someone to realize he was awake, and come to speak with him about what happened. After all it had been such a simple job gone horribly wrong, and he told the truth… mostly. He neglected to mention that he ended up chasing someone before he’d been attacked by this unknown man. He didn’t feel that part was worth knowing, but he wondered if they were trying to pry it out of him. No matter how much he asked, nobody would tell him where Amber was. If that was their way of trying to get answers they were going about it wrong, he would’ve told Amber everything. He knows she would’ve lectured him, but he would’ve still told her, he wouldn’t keep secrets from her. 

But a different trusted familiar face arrives at least, one he smiles gratefully at when the door opens and he realizes who it is. 

“Akutagawa, thank you.”

@remotespontaneouscombustion; in response to this post, because we just love pain here I guess

Black shoes ran over the ground, swiftly, surely, unerringly.

He had started moving the moment that the voice on the phone broke off. There was no need for any further details; no need to ask questions. It wasn't difficult to figure out where he was needed, even without directions. The sight of the smoke in the sky was more than enough of a marker.

Things might have turned out different if Akutagawa had been further away when he received the call; but, mercifully, the distance between here and Maki's location wasn't so great. He ran now like he couldn't remember running in years. Since he was Maki's own age, maybe.

A small, broken voice, begging for his help, dragged up memories that he'd thought were long buried beneath years past.

Keep reading